Parshat Ekev
For this second week of the shiv’a de-nechemta, the seven weeks when we read a haftarah of comfort, I would like to find comfort in the comments to the parsha I found. Look hard enough (or read all the way through) and I think it’s there. But not where you first seek it.
Wearing Tefillin Outside of Israel
In the section of the parsha we read twice daily as the second paragraph of Shema, the verse tells us to place Hashem’s words on our hearts and souls, tie them onto our arms, have them be a sign between our eyes, 11;18. Rashi cited Chazal, Hashem was telling us to wear tefillin and put mezuzot on our doors even in exile, so they not be new to us when we return.
HaKetav VeHaKabbalah questions what that could mean, when both are chovat ha-guf, are obligations a Jew carries on his person, not related to or dependent on one’s presence in Israel. To support his question, he notes Sifrei had a very similar idea without singling out any mitzvot. For Sifrei, Hashem urged us to keep mitzvot in exile in general, so they not be new, with the prooftext of Yirmiyahu 31;20, set for yourself markers.
Abbreviations Will Mislead You
Eichah Rabbah paved the way to a technical answer. R. Shim’on b. Yochai has our same idea, except he addressed himself to terumot u-ma’asrot, the agricultural gifts for kohanim and Levi’im, which do not apply in exile. Nonetheless, Rashbi said, the verse wants us to give those anyway, to keep in practice with the mitzvot, not have them be new when we return. (R. Mecklenburg throws in that Sifrei is usually R. Shimon b. Yochai, so Eichah Rabbah gives a specific, Sifrei expands it to all mitzvot, keep them in exile for practice.)
The acronym for terumot u-ma’asrot is the same as for tefillin u-mezuzot (tu”m), R. Mecklenburg points out, so perhaps Rashi recorded the version in Eichah Rabbah, either he or some later copyist abbreviated it to tu”m, and someone misunderstood the abbreviation.
Or Maybe It Really Is Tefillin
A flaw in that argument is that Ramban already has Rashi the same way we do (the error might have already gotten in by then, but it shortens the window, and means Ramban thought Rashi could make sense that way, asking us to figure out what that could be). Ramban said there was a deep esoteric (likely kabbalistic) secret there. R. Mecklenburg has no expertise in such matters, he tells us, yet thinks another Sifrei suggests an explanation. That other Sifrei suggests an analogy to a woman banished by her husband. She goes home [as Robert Frost said, home is where, when you really have to go there, they have to take you], and her father urges her to continue adorning herself in her usual tachshitin, decorative jewelry (or perfumes), to be ready for when her husband takes her back. So Hashem said to us.
R. Mecklenburg says this was how Chazal taught us the importance of obligations tied to our bodies even outside of Israel, like a married woman dressing as she would at home. Forced to separate, as it were, some “wives” despair of restoring the marriage, and don’t bother with what they used to do. Those who hold out hope for reunion will keep in practice for married life. We, too, by wearing tefillin, putting up mezuzot, show our hope to connect again, to be redeemed, to be restored.
Obviously, R. Mecklenburg knows we’re required to do this because it’s the rules. Our Sifrei adds an element, by maintaining signs of intimate connection relevant only to a healthy relationship, we also show our longing for return to that relationship, soon and speedily. The obligatory, too, can express yearning.
Deserving Death Doesn’t Mean Dealing Death
At the end of Moshe Rabbenu’s description of the sin of the Golden Calf, verse 10;10 closes with the phrase “Hashem did not wish to destroy you.” R. Samson Raphael Hirsch disabuses us of the simple reading, Moshe’s prayers succeeded in dissuading God from destroying the people, because the verse had already said Hashem promised not to destroy them. Besides, were this a continuation of what came before, the verse should have said and Hashem did not desire, etc.
He instead reads Moshe to be telling us Hashem never wanted to destroy us, despite our fully deserving it. In this third time on the mountain, after all his prayers, Moshe merited learning more about Hashem’s way of guiding people towards their best futures. God knows people will do that which should bring them a death penalty, but never plans to kill them, only to make clear the significance of what they have done.
[Worth a pause. R. Hirsch thinks people sinning in a way that deserves death is the rule, not the exception.]
Armed with full awareness of their liability, Moshe and the people can “earn” a lighter consequence by admitting what they did and sincerely committing to improve. Still, they must hold to their memory of what they should have gotten, and transmit that to future generations.
It’s an important and delicate balancing act, to tell ourselves Hashem never really planned to kill us, as long as we repented and admitted what we had done. Some will say, you see, our sin wasn’t worth death, but R. Hirsch is not saying that. We’re supposed to say, we should have been wiped out [something few people today are willing to admit, ever], except Hashem knew the likelihood of failure, had inserted a failsafe from the start, where we get more chances, with the “magic” of full recognition of how wrong we were, what would have been proper to bear as punishment, and redouble our efforts to do better.
An Image That Seems Relevant
How do we help addicts rebuild their lives? With knowledge of the likelihood of backsliding, and a path forward even after. Not because it’s owed them, but because their eventual success of their rebuilding their lives is more valuable to us than meting out what would be right and proper.
We Like Thinking We Deserve the Good
Continuing the theme of seeing our deficiencies, Malbim to 9;4-7 understands Moshe to be warning the Jews against assuming their merits earned them the Land Israel. While they will be correct to recognize the other nations lost the Land because of their evil deeds, we only got it because of the covenant between Hashem and our forefathers.
To keep this in mind, we need only remember (verse seven) our angering actions after we left Egypt, most glaringly the Golden Calf, a sin that happened exactly where we received the Torah and heard God command us never to worship any other power. In that very place, forty days later, we worshipped the image of the Calf, an act that could/should have been our end, Malbim also reminds us.
Trusting God
In chapter 8, verses 3-4, R. David Tzvi Hoffmann explains why Moshe speaks of Hashem afflicting and hungering us, when we had man from heaven. The daily element itself was the affliction, our having to rely on Hashem, to live in a state of perpetual food insecurity, unless we had developed enough faith to trust Hashem would give us our food.
It was hard, Moshe was saying, regardless of other ways Hashem’s continuing support showed itself, such as clothing not wearing out, our feet/legs never swelling (R. Hoffmann writes of constant wandering, although last week we saw Malbim highlight how it was usually a move a year, or less.)
We had our health, we had clothing that lasted, and we still suffered with the worry we might wake up the next day with nothing.
To bring us back to where I started, we may want one type of comfort, but the pieces I sliced out of this week’s parsha suggest another. We ready ourselves for it by staying attached to mitzvot both because they are obligatory and because they express our connection to Hashem, even in exile; we position ourselves for Hashem’s comfort when we have an honest picture of ourselves, know what Hashem could legitimately have done, but did not, know how little we had earned the goodness that came our way, topped off by our memory of how Hashem cared for us—and tested us-- throughout our time in the desert.
Comfort comes from honesty. Let’s hope we can be honest soon.
